Blogger Notes

Because I'm on my way out of the institution known as "school," people like to ask me about my future (which is the f-word, though sometimes I'd like to respond with a very different f-word).

What are my plans? Where am I going to grad school? What's happening after graduation?

It happens every day. Which is astounding, really, because that means I'm coming into contact with someone I'm moderately acquainted with but haven't talked to in a while every single day. I had no idea I knew that many people who were the least bit interested in my f*ture.

I suppose I'm flattered; I don't really know.

Searching for jobs for which to apply can be fruitful some days and pointless other days. In an attempt to cast a wide net, I'm looking for jobs in a variety of categories that interest me, not strictly writing. Writing jobs are scarce these days, anyway.

Besides, I'm not a one-dimensional person with only one interest. I'm a very well-rounded person in fact, and as such I have a wide variety of interests. Having a one-dimensional job would be a nightmare. I'd like a multidimensional job that encompasses several things I'm interested in. Too much to ask? I don't think so.

In an effort to widen my search parameters, I decided to take all sorts of aptitude tests online just to see if perhaps there was some particular thing I have a natural inclination or affinity for subconsciously.

As expected, though much to my disappointment, my results returned things like "outdoors" and "education" and "non profit work" and "writing/publishing" and "agriculture." How I missed the boat on agriculture, by the way, I have no idea.

Anyway, it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, which was kind of frustrating. Maybe a little comforting that I at least know myself that well.

Somedays I'd really just like to give up and enlist in Star Fleet. I think I'd look good in one of those blue sweaters.

I hate grocery shopping, which is unfortunate because I dearly love to eat. Cooking doesn't bother me. Heck, I can even do the dishes... it's always the grocery shopping that kills me.

It's some weird combination of buying food and then not knowing for a fact that I'll eat it before it goes bad and thus I waste money AND food and there are all these people who have neither and then I feel like a big, fat jerk... it's dumb. And the process itself is horrible.

More than anything I think I hate pushing the shopping cart. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I hope I find a guy who knows that, probably above all other domestic tasks and responsibilities, he will HAVE to push the shopping cart because I will absolutely refuse to do it. I hate having to maneuver around other carts and in narrow aisles and I constantly think I'm in someone's way. Oy. I hate it.

I even hate picking out food. Last week I needed more peanut butter and stood staring for twenty minutes at eighty different peanut butters. No, I don't want one with jelly mixed in or one that's flavored like chocolate or one that's low sodium or low sugar or low fat. I don't want one that comes with a free toy or a coupon for some off-brand jam. I don't want one that comes in a jar too big to fit in my cabinet, or one that costs $8. I don't want the soy one or the all-natural one.

Peanut butter used to come in two varieties: smooth and chunky.

But they've even made that complicated. There's extra smooth and extra chunky now. Extra chunky I suppose I can understand. You can always put more peanuts in. But extra smooth? What the hell does that mean? Are they putting less than no peanuts in it? Are they putting negative peanuts in the peanut butter?

I DON'T THINK SO!

So, finally, after spending half my morning in the pb&j aisle, I picked up regular, store brand, chunky peanut butter.

I'm grateful for the aisle with the ramen and canned tuna, which should be renamed the "Almost as poor as dirt" aisle. Or the "food that will survive a nuclear holocaust" aisle. I'm a fan of either of those. I generally enjoy that aisle because that's where I can find all my friends. I don't always know the people, but I know their type... college students or the newly graduated who found that, despite no longer being a college student, they have come in to no more money than they had as a work study filing papers in the dean's office. AND they have loans.

Anyway, it's a comparatively decision-free aisle. You just have to know how much you want. Last week when I went to get my weekly ration of ramen I found the individual packages next to the twelve packs. Stay with me. The individual packages were 15 cents (don't get me started. I remember when they were 7 or 8 cents). The 12-pack was $1.82. Let's walk through this. 12 individual packages would cost me $1.80. A box of 12 would cost me $1.82. I felt mighty proud of myself as I loaded 12 individual packages into my cart. I figured the extra two cents was to pay for the classy and attractive packaging. Raw cardboard and stretchy orange plastic that always seems to be covered in some sort of powder.

The freezer section is also not a horrible experience, though it's getting worse. I just want toaster waffles and someone dropped an A-Bomb on the Eggo factory or something and now there's this massive, national shortage. DAMN THIS RECESSION! It's ruining my life! So I have to try other brands of toaster waffles. Admittedly, they'll all taste like freezer burn anyway so I'm not sure it's worth my money to buy designer toaster waffles. And, for the record, I don't want mine with blueberries or chocolate chips or to be shaped like pancakes or to have Zac Efron's face in the middle. Am I reaching for the stars in my desire to have normal toaster waffles?

I think the absolute worst part of the food-picking process is easily produce. I always wonder who woke up one day and decided that of everything growing in the continent, THESE particular things would be cultivated and widely distributed.

I just don't know HOW to pick this stuff. Obviously, if there's a sunflower the size of my face growing out of my potato, I know not to eat it. But there are so many other things like.. like.. melons and stuff. You just can't get a good one. OH! Cucumbers. Somewhere in the middle of my long list of oddities is the fact that I like cucumbers on my sandwiches. So last week I decided I should buy a cucumber to, well, put on my sandwiches.

It occurred to me that I had never before in my life bought a cucumber and I've come to the conclusion that they make me very uncomfortable. They're all weird and waxy and, above all, inescapably phallic. I'm up to my elbows in cucumbers looking at them and feeling them and squeezing them and wondering if they should be softish or firmish. If little bumps are ok. If it should be curvy or not. If that little extra stem is normal. It got to the point when I had to wonder if I was even thinking about cucumbers anymore at all. I don't know, but I was blushing quite a lot, so I just grabbed one and ran for it.

It's embarrassing to admit that such a mundane errand can cause me this much upset, but I can't help that. I can obviously not handle having choices.

I got back to my apartment from being at home for two and a half weeks and immediately had to go to Walmart because I had nothing in my refrigerator but moldy cheese, rotten eggs, and an inch or so of Pepsi in a two-liter bottle that has been there since October.

The cheese was obviously the most appetizing thing but, alas, it belonged to my roommate.

I thought going to Walmart midday on a Monday would be blissful. Like an early Sunday morning while church was still in session, sparing me from having to play bumper cars with my shopping cart and witness a variety of parents yelling at their kids for, well, yelling.

Much to my chagrin, there were people in Walmart. Lots of people, in fact. Just not the usual crowd I'm used to dealing with.

I'm convinced a senior center had some sort of field trip to the store and, based on what these folks were buying, and the quantity in which they were buying it, I easily concluded that these little excursions aren't at all frequent.

I saw one lady in a motorized cart shove as many skeins of yarn into her basket as it could possibly handle. No two skeins seemed to match, either. It looked like she just wiped out the yarn shelf in the craft section. Maybe she wanted to be sure she could tell which yarn belonged to which kitty. Maybe she just has a lot of really small knitting projects that require only one skein. Maybe she's planning on making one really, REALLY big project that's all funky and eclectic. I'm not judging.

One couple bought EIGHT packages of Charmin. EIGHT packages. I imagined them bemoaning the nursing home's scratchy excuse for toilet paper.

I got in line after pacing up and down the check-out side of the store three times deciding which register would be fastest when I realized it was futile. I knew I'd be stuck behind an elderly lady or gentleman, but wanted to at least pick a comparatively quick-moving one. No luck.

The lady ahead of me was adorable in an old-person way. She was very sweet and gentle and so... precise, I suppose you could say, with things. She had her list and bought only what was on it and had a coupon, of course, for everything under the sun. But they were clipped so perfectly.

She also had no teeth, smiled with her gums, and was wearing very plaid pajama pants with ugg boots under a long, puffy coat that was more like a sleeping bag with sleeves... which, I realized after giggling in my head, isn't all that different than what I see the sorority girls wear around campus most days.

The yarn lady snuck up behind me in her silent shopping scooter. I jumped when I saw her white poodle hair poking out from behind the mountain of yarn. I wanted to ask what all that yarn could POSSIBLY be for, but didn't because the lady ahead of me was heading home to hopefully find her teeth and it was my turn to pay.